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Apple To Appeal Ruling It Fixed E-Book Prices

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Apple has its own woes. The company has vowed to appeal a ruling this week that found it guilty of conspiring with publishers to fix the price of eBooks. Many legal experts say the verdict will open a floodgate of civil lawsuits and invite deeper scrutiny of Apple's other retail businesses.

And as NPR's Laura Sydell reports, it's not clear that the verdict is a win for consumers.

LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: First, some basic facts. About three years ago, when Apple was getting ready to introduce the first iPad, it wanted to have an eBook store, so it heavily courted the major publishers.

At the time, publishers were not happy with Amazon - which was and still is the biggest eBook retailer. Amazon was courting consumers by pricing eBooks at $9.99 - that's below what it cost to buy the books from the publishers. Publishers feared this was making consumers think eBooks should be cheap.

Apple knew about the discontent, so it lured publishers with the agency model, which lets publishers set the sale price. The Justice Department charged that Apple knew this would drive up the cost to consumers.

Michael Bobelian an author, attorney, and columnist at Forbes, says that's why the Justice Department had to go after Apple.

MICHAEL BOBELIAN: That's sort of an automatic sign that there's something wrong from an antitrust perspective when you have competitors meeting together, working together to raise prices.

SYDELL: A federal judge found Apple guilty of price fixing. In a statement, Apple said it will appeal.

Chris Compton, an antitrust attorney in Silicon Valley, says if the verdict stands, Apple is likely to face more scrutiny from the Justice Department as it makes new deals with movie, and TV studios and record labels.

CHRIS COMPTON: Having gone through this process, there is no question that they'll be looking carefully at Apple.

SYDELL: Compton believes the DOJ is likely to get some help scrutinizing the internal workings of Apple. Apple is likely to face civil cases, seeking damages for consumers; those lawyers will seek more information.

COMPTON: That discovery may take them into other areas. They may see emails or they may see market studies and what not.

SYDELL: All of that information could draw more scrutiny to Apple. The Justice Department has called this week's ruling a victory for millions of consumers. But, the DOJ is facing criticism for the case from some surprising quarters.

MARK COKER: If all of the large New York publishers collapsed tomorrow, it would be a massive boon to my business.

SYDELL: Mark Coker is the founder of Smashwords, a site that helps authors publish and distribute their own books through sites like Amazon, iTunes, Barnes and Nobel. He thinks Amazon's low pricing has really hurt traditional publishers as they learn to market digital books.

COKER: The authors of the future should have the choice to work with either a traditional publisher or self publish. I think that leads to a, a more dynamic, more diverse, higher quality book culture than if all the major publishers were eventually to just whither away and collapse.

Coker notes the demise of traditional publishers might be good for Amazon's own self publishing business. And that's one detail that has some observers wondering why the DOJ isn't looking into Amazon.

SYDELL: Antitrust attorney Chris Compton thinks that the Justice Department may have learned a lot more about eBook publishing in the process of its case against Apple and it may start to scrutinize the dominant player - Amazon.

Laura Sydell, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Laura Sydell fell in love with the intimate storytelling qualities of radio, which combined her passion for theatre and writing with her addiction to news. Over her career she has covered politics, arts, media, religion, and entrepreneurship. Currently Sydell is the Digital Culture Correspondent for NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and NPR.org.